I Need To Know: How You Think Bill Would Be In Chat If He Ever Got The Priviledge To Get A Phone Or Use

Character flaws

Just gonna go on a tangent about this for a second, because like

Part 1: Why they don't work and never have

The number one piece of advice people get about writing is to give their characters flaws. Your characters can't be too perfect. Flaws will make them interesting, dynamic, compelling, more real! Flawed characters make for a perfect story! But then someone will ask how to give their characters flaws, and the response is almost invariably something along the lines of

"Just don't make them perfect. Give them a scar or a disability or something."

This is some of the worst writing advice I've ever heard, right up there with "NEVER use adjectives ever" and "Nahh, you don't need to make backups of your work, it'll totally be fine and nothing bad will happen." It's also the single most common piece of writing advice I've come across. This is bad advice.

Because like… Scars aren't a personality flaw. Disabilities especially are not a personality flaw. Both these things have their uses in writing characters, but they aren't flaws. Honestly it's a little shocking that people think it's okay to outright say they think a disability is a character flaw to begin with, because like. Excuse me?

The next problem with this is that, even if these were somehow character flaws, most people don't want to make literally all their characters scarred and disabled. That's like saying that good characters are required to have blonde hair and bushy eyebrows. A character or two with those traits isn't an issue, but telling someone all their characters need one or both of these two traits? That's incredibly limiting.

Lastly, it encourages people to think up a character and then tack on the 'flaws' after. It's why we ended up with an era of perfectly smart perfectly beautiful perfectly skilled characters that had a disproportionate amount of angst about some tiny barely noticeable scar on their back. It's how we get characters that are 'clumsy' (in no way that actually matters to the story), or who have the sole flaw of being too perfect.

People made characters they liked, and they liked them exactly that way. Then afterwards, they had to tack on some 'flaw' they didn't actually want to be part of the character. So they of course make that 'flaw' as small and unimportant as possible. To go back to the "all characters must be blonde with bushy eyebrows" comparison, it's the writer trying to work around this unwanted restriction by giving everyone rainbow hair dye and eyebrow trimmers.

So, how do we fix that?

Part 2: How to fix that

… Or one way, anyway. There are infinite ways to solve this problem, most of which start by completely throwing out the standard scar/disability advice. Everyone has their own way to write characters. But just saying "idk, everyone is different, there are lots of ways" is ridiculously unhelpful. So, here's one way to do it that I really like to use personally. You can use it too, if you want.

instead of a flaw, I like to give my characters an Unshakeable Trait.

What is an unshakeable trait? It's the term I like to use for something that will always be true about a character. Something core to them, something that will never leave them for as long as they live. It is, most importantly, not a flaw.

Let's come up with a quick character as an example. Meet Alaric, who always keeps his word. Anything Alaric says he will do, he will do it.

This is Alaric's greatest strength.

Alaric says he will save all the orphans from the burning orphanage. People doubt him, but he does it. He said he was going to do it, so there was nothing that could stop him from doing it.

Alaric says he will catch the thieves hiding in the mountains. Many have tried and failed to do this, but Alaric says he can do it. And thus, Alaric does it.

Alaric says he will move a mountain? He wouldn't say it unless he could and would make it true. We've seen him do amazing things before. We don't know how yet, but we know that mountain is about to move.

One day, Alaric says he will slay the dragon. We know, for certain, that nothing will stop him from slaying that dragon.

… Not even if it turns out the dragon wasn't really bothering anyone.

… Not even if something goes wrong and Alaric ends up without the important tools he'd prepared for this task.

… Not even if the battle is likely to kill his entire party. Not even if killing the dragon will only make way for more dangerous monsters to move in. Not even if his friends beg and plead with him, Alaric you must stop, this is a death sentence to us all!

Alaric said he would do this, and he will.

Because this isn't just Alaric's greatest strength. It's also his greatest weakness.

The hearts of the readers are heavy as they realize what is about to unfold, but they are not surprised. By now they know Alaric and they know who he is. They know the dragon will die, no matter the consequences.

In the battle, the entire town and all the people who once lived in it is burned to the ground. Every last one of Alaric's friends die in battle. When the dragon falls, only Alaric is left alive.

… And that makes for a really interesting story! Gosh darn! That's way more fun than a story where some cool guy just always solves everyone's problems all the time! And now that we've seen the terrible consequences of Alaric's actions, we can take it even further! How exactly does Alaric react to what he's done?

Is he unable to cope with his terrible mistake, and twists himself into something awful trying to justify his actions?

Does he plead with the ashes, begging the charred town for forgiveness he cannot have?

Does he vow to take back what he's done? Drive himself to madness in pursuit of an unobtainable goal, every action an even greater mistake than the last?

Does he grow, and change his ways? Because he absolutely can do that. An unshakeable trait is always there deep down inside a character, but it is possible for them to learn to overcome it. It will be a battle they'll fight every day for the rest of their lives, and it is a battle they will not always win, but it is possible. Filled with regret, there may be a day where Alaric says he will do something… and then consciously makes an incredible effort to avoid doing it, because he realized it would be a mistake. Today, he was able to overcome his weakness. That trait isn't going anywhere though, and tomorrow is still unsure.

That is my favorite way to write a flawed character.

The most fun part is, this unshakeable trait can be anything. It can be that they always finish things very quickly. It can be that they love their friends more than anything else in the universe. It can be that they're always multitasking. It can be their child-like wonder, or their scientific mind, or even something as silly as their love of sweet potatoes. When made central to their character and taken to extremes, absolutely anything can function as this dual greatest strength and greatest weakness.

That being said, this is again just one way to do it. To say this is the only way to write a flawed character brings us back to "but they must all be blonde and have bushy eyebrows." And sometimes? Sometimes you don't even want to write a flawed character. Sometimes you want an invincible Superman, and if that's what you want then go for it!

This is one place you could start if you're feeling lost or unsure, but at the end of the day it's just a tool in your pocket. It's up to you to choose your favorite tools for the job.

Writing should be fun! Write what you love. Write what interests you, most of all.

idk if you've ever answered this before (probably, the answer is always probably) but is Bill, like... capable of empathy? Of sympathy? Of love (any kind) or compassion? I guess what I'm asking is how does he relate to other people? Are they all just tools and idle amusements, or does he develop any actual genuine (positive??) attachment to them?

Everything I know about him comes from 8+ year old memories of a cartoon I haven't rewatched since, and discourse I see through your blog, so I'm not sure what the canon consensus is but your word is god enough to me on at least your specific interpretation of Bill.

(I guess it would be moot to ask why he's so fucked up. Feel free to ignore any and all of this ask, it's 12 AM and I'm trawling the web before bed)

for my specific interpretation of Bill? Have this post about empathy and a couple of posts about romantic love. (Okay—three about romance.)

But now let's forget about my interpretation and talk canon.

Empathy! You can roughly split empathy into two categories: "I can logically identify and understand what you're feeling" empathy, and "when you're sad i feel sad and when you're happy I feel happy" empathy.

We absolutely know that Bill has "I understand what you're feeling" empathy, because he uses it again and again to manipulate his victims. He has VERY good emotional intelligence. He understands his victims' insecurities, their desires, how to make them feel happy, angry, ashamed, trustful, mistrustful; he knows when and how to manipulate them based on their mood to maximum effect; etc. We see it in how he manipulates Dipper & Mabel in the show; we see it in how he turns Ford against Fiddleford in Journal 3; we see it in TBOB and on thisisnotawebsitedotcom in the way he talks about how and why he manipulated Ford.

We have no evidence he experiences "I feel what you feel" empathy. That doesn't necessarily mean he DOESN'T, but there's no evidence for it. Never see him get excited just because someone else is excited, never see him cringe sympathetically when someone else is hurt. You could say "maybe on top of being a manipulation tactic, when Bill relates to Ford's estrangement from his family by talking about his destroyed universe, he's also feeling empathy for his situation," but you could also just as easily say "nah it's just manipulation."

Common sense would say well, if he feels other people's pain, it would be harder for him to manipulate, betray, and hurt people so blithely. But we're not talking about common sense, we're talking about canon evidence! It's possible for empathetic people to hurt other people; they can just... learn not to care about that person's feelings. Which is particularly easy to do if the target is someone the person sees as "less important" or dehumanizes them. Bill sees everyone as less important than him. We can't rule either way on whether or not he's got a capacity for emotional empathy we just never see. All we can say for sure is he doesn't appear to turn it on for anyone we see.

Though we see him come close. Although he doesn't feel with any of the Pines, we can see him relate to Ford (during Weirdmageddon, throughout TBOB), to Stan (on TINAWDC), and to Mabel (in TBOB and the Dipper & Mabel's Guide book) via projecting his struggles and beliefs on to them. But in a way this is sort of, reverse empathy?; it doesn't let him feel how they feel, but it makes him assume they feel the way he does.

Sympathy! The definitions of empathy vs sympathy vs compassion are contested so I'm gonna present the definitions I'm using for this post: empathy is "i [feel/understand] what you feel" and sympathy is "i care about how you feel." There's a couple of moments in his interactions with Ford in TBOB that are blatantly manipulative (when he shows Ford what's left of his dimension; to a lesser extent, when he "helps" Ford celebrate his birthday) that might also secondarily be fleeting displays of sympathy. It's ambiguous.

Compassion! Compassion is "i'm moved to help because of how you feel." There's a moment in TBOB when he gets so irritated at Puritan misogyny that he teaches a bunch of Puritan wives how to be witches and has a girls' night burning men at the stake with them. He apparently gets no benefits from this himself, aside from funsies. Is he motivated by compassion for the ladies or ONLY by irritation at how boring the men are? Again, ambiguous.

In TBOB when discussing his exploits in the Nightmare Realm, he mentions freeing patients from insane asylums and criminals from prisons. He also repeatedly mentions disliking captivity. He might be motivated by compassion derived from empathy for prisoners. He doesn't present his motives.

Love! He calls the Henchmaniacs his "family," repeatedly brings up their worries about being erased from reality, and says he takes his party hosting duties to them very seriously. We don't know whether he actually cared about them, or merely called them a family in recognition of their consistent loyalty and obedience. He's pretty disrespectful/violent toward them but that isn't incompatible with being emotionally invested in them beyond their utility. We don't have confirmation he cares for them, or confirmation he doesn't.

Hidden in TBOB and absolutely riddled through TINAWDC are references to his parents caring about him and tender quotes. When he's so blind drunk he doesn't know where he is, he tries to call his mom and asks her to make him a sandwich after school. We know he resents how they pathologized a mutation he was born with; beyond that we can't confirm whether or not he loved them; but just beneath the surface, he's unceasingly haunted by how they loved him.

Romantic love! I wrote a post about the evidence for/against romantic attraction in TBOB. He's confirmed to have at least two ex girlfriends; in the book, he mentions missing them both. He mentions having "seduced" galaxies; we don't know whether these seductions were sexual, sexual+romantic, or metaphorical. He denies having in the exes in the same book where he discusses them, and claims that love is the pupa for hate.

You can choose to interpret this multiple ways. To me it reads most strongly as "he's been in love but sucks at maintaining a relationship because he's an asshole, and he's got sour grapes about it"; but you could read it as "he wants love but his relationships fall apart because he can't feel it and he doesn't examine why" or "the relationships were based on something other than romantic love" and not technically be wrong based on the evidence we have. What we know for sure: he's had multiple relationships; he misses them; he tries to deny they happened; he claims love's dumb.

Genuine attachment to his tools! Bill claims torturing Ford was normal Henchmaniac hazing and he wanted him to join the gang. (Dubious evidence of emotional attachment.) He goes on a raging bender when Ford refuses to join him and escapes before Bill can torture him into joining. (Stronger evidence of emotional attachment.) In Weirdmageddon, seconds after Ford tried to murder Bill, he asks Ford to join him and then turns him into a statue he carries around everywhere when Ford refuses—and this is BEFORE he discovers Ford might still have a practical use for him.

On TINAWDC, he has an exchange that boils down to "Ford was just a tool?" "You say that like it's a bad thing!" "So you never cared about him?" "I didn't say that." He goes on to refer to Ford as his pet and henchman. Demeaning—but, people do feel positively toward their pets.

(It may be worth noting he also calls Teeth the Henchmaniacs' pet. Maybe this is a consistent element to how Bill relates to sentient people.)

There's evidence in TBOB that he felt similarly about his first human henchman, the shaman—at minimum, he's very bitter when the shaman turns on him and he says he's gonna find a "new best friend."

Summary: There's evidence that Bill develops facets of positive attachments to the people around him; but we don't have any evidence that any of these attachments ever added up to a positive & healthy relationship. In all the relationships we see in depth, the toxic aspects outweighed the positive ones.

Summary of the summary: Bill has the capacity for healthy relationships but is too big a douchebag to utilize it.

How do you have the willpower to not consume content from any of your other fandoms? I always get pulled in and out of the same ones and it stops me from getting projects done but I get so bored! Teach me your ways!

So the downside of ADHD is that it takes a ridiculously high amount of effort to push yourself to do things—even things you want to do and like doing—unless you put even more effort upfront into making it convenient for yourself.

But the upside is, if you know this about yourself, and if there's media you want to not be consuming, you just...... don't do anything to make it convenient to consume.

I don't have Amazon Prime. All I have to do is not bother to get Amazon Prime (easy!!) and not bother to hunt out a way to watch Hazbin some other way (also easy!!) and bam, I've got a 100% success rate of not watching it.

Do you know how many Transformers series I'm currently behind on? I sure don't! Because I haven't put the effort into looking it up! I can't be assed! There's like, at least three I think! Don't tell me, I'm not currently interested in finding out!! It would take work for me to figure it out; I can just go "work?? Naaah. Not doing that."

You can resist temptation by just being too lazy to pursue it! Make that ADHD work for YOU!

Caution: if you can't get yourself to put effort into doing anything that brings you pleasure, that's either Pretty Serious Depression or it's gonna cause Pretty Serious Depression and it's not good. However. If you master the art of ADHD, you can save up the effort you didn't put into distractions, and use it to put effort into different activities that also make you happy.

Last year I picked up a podcast about cults. It's all right. But because I'm already listening to it and spotify keeps pushing it to the top of my screen, when I need a low-effort audio distraction, it's easier for me to default to putting on the podcast about cults than it would be for me to, say, dig up The Magnus Protocol to start it. And bam! Now I'm doing more research that'll help me write about a cult leader, for free, by listening to a podcast I'm not at risk of hyperfixating on!

Part of avoiding breaking your own hyperfixation is figuring out what media you enjoy, but don't hyperfixate on. Because you still need to, like, have fun. That's why you wanna watch The Things You Like, because it's fun. If you're not having fun you'll wanna go watch The Things You Like, and rightly so. So you've gotta make sure you're having enough fun with things you don't hyperfixate on.

Like, I know that when I watch Columbo or read Poirot, I find the detectives charming while I'm observing them, and then almost as soon as the mystery is over I stop thinking about them. They aren't the kind of characters that latch into my brain. I know they won't become blorbos. So I'm safe there. I know I enjoy horror movies but 99% of the time totally forget who the characters are, like if there's 2 white guys and 2 white girls it is guaranteed I won't be able to tell them apart, so they're safe to watch, I'm not gonna hyperfixate on them. I know that I enjoy nonfiction/educational books & podcasts, but I only hyperfixate on fiction, so it's safe for me to pick up nonfiction. If it's nonfiction that's somehow thematically relevant to whatever I'm currently hyperfixated on, it even helps feed the current hyperfixation.

And those are my "protect your hyperfixation" lifehacks.

On the other hand, if you, anon, don't personally have ADHD, then I can't help you. idk how people with executive function function.

Final advice: if you know you keep falling in and out of the same 3 or 4 fandoms, maybe try writing a crossover fic about all 3 or 4 fandoms at once. That way it won't matter which one you're currently into. You win no matter what. I've never actually tried this, don't trust this advice.

Satsuten Fanbook Case 2

Case 2

The man who made himself into furniture – the human furniture artist

This is a short story from the Satsuriku no Tenshi Fanbook.

Written by Makoto Sanada, translated by me.

Keep reading

Satsuten Light Novels

Volume 1 (finished)

Prologue

B7

B6

B5

B4 (Part 1 / Part 2)

B3 (Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4)

Zack’s Memory

Also available on Bakatsuki, on Google Drive, and as a PDF.

Volume 2 (in progress)

Prologue

Chapter 1 - Sweet Guilt

Chapter 2 - Tragedy in Her Daydream

Chapter 3 - Zack’s Knife

Chapter 4 - The Witch Trial

Eddie’s Memory

Her Memory of Cathy

I love a character raised to be a weapon as much as the next guy. But what really gets me is a character raised to be a shield. Who can’t fathom being needed—or even being wanted— beyond keeping others safe. Who believe they are alive only to insure someone doesn’t die. no matter the cost. Characters who self-sacrifice not because they think they deserve it, but because no one else does deserve it, and it’s their job to protect.

Characters who’ve been told that’s why your important. Your worth something because this other person/ thing is important, and you are here solely to keep them safe.

Bonus points if it’s not a legitimate job they’ve been given. Maybe at one point it was, but now that they are free from it, they haven’t given up that mentality. No one is forcing or asking them to do this, but they need to. They need to in order to be deserving.

real unedited footage of baby saiki kusuo

Part 1: Making a Gravestone

As I mentioned earlier, there will be spoilers! You can skip this if want to experience the game for yourself. Also, feel free to correct me for any mistakes.

Part 2 ┃ Part 3 ┃ Part 4 ┃ Part 5 ┃ Part 6┃ Part 7 ┃ Part 8 Part 9 ┃Part 10┃ Part 11/Finale

The game starts off with Eddie and his brothers playing hide and seek in the cemetery. The brothers ask him why he doesn’t play hide and seek with them and he simply responds because he has the graves to take care of (what a hard worker he is!). One of the brothers tells him that maintenance is already over and Eddie is having none of it. To him graves come first.

After playful teasing and Eddie asking his brother who’s in the grave, the game takes us to our first save. For some reason it wouldn’t let me save the game, until I read the instructions that is (you have to copy the folder from the disc onto your desktop). The game at this point takes a more sinister/dark tone, the music is a bit creepy here with bird chirping in the background. Little brother tells Eddie that the girl in the grave is a child and that she’s very cute, about the same age as brother George (how many brothers does Eddie have?).

Then we are presented with choices (first decision making, folks). How do you want the grave to be? I chose small and wonderful since the girl is…well a child. Eddie seems to agree with my choice and is happy then proceeds to ask his brother why did the child die. Little brother tells him that she was found dead in the woods and probably fell off a cliff after chasing something, a cute animal maybe? She did love cute things after all according to him anyway. 

Eddie and his family seem to be animal lovers and we are then presented with the second choice. He seems to want to decorate the gravestone in the shape of an animal. It gives you three options: Bear, Unicorn, and Wolf. I chose unicorn (don’t fight me on this, guys, it’s a little girl! xD) 

They proceed to talk about what she was wearing. A dress with a heart decoration on it perhaps? But when her corpse was found, her whole body was covered in blood. Eddie says the burial dress is plain and he does not like her like that (Eddie why?!) 

He wants to keep adding more to the grave. I think this is an option for the burial dress pattern. For this one I chose a flower. Eddie asks if that is too common/plain and little bro replies that it should be different (I went with the wrong answer.) The correct answer is the first option (a shooting star?) correct me if I’m wrong as I am a bit confused with this one. 

And with that our unicorn gravestone is complete and little brother seems impressed and happy with it! Eddie replies that it is perfect for the little girl and hopes she will rest well in her new grave. I will end part 1 now. Eddie’s father will make an appearance in part 2.

sometimes i need to remind myself that i'm writing fanfiction for free and i'm allowed to have a shitty sentence or two

sometimes it's not even enemies to lovers. sometimes you get handed the leash of a snarling, barking dog against your will and realize with dawning horror that you are now responsible for teaching it not to bite